From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru

Bengaluru, Jan 6: With a Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection of Rs 61,245 croreduring the first three quarters ending December 2019 of the current financial year, Karnataka has emerged as the second highest in the entire country in GST collection.

Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, who held a meeting of senior officials of the revenue collecting departments, told reporters in Bengaluru that the exercise was part of the pre-budget evaluation of all State Government departments ahead of the 2020-21 annual budget to be presented in March 2020.

Yediyurappa expressed satisfaction that the State’s GST growth was 14.2 % despite the talk of economic slowdown.

He, however, asked the officials to step up efforts to maximize revenue collection and check evasion and pilferages in the next three months to enable the government to go ahead with its welfare and developmental programmes.

Officials of commercial tax, excise, transport, stamps and registration and Mines and Geology departments were part of the exercise.

Chief Secretary T M Vijayabhaskar, Home minister Basavaraj Bommai, Principal Secretary of Finance department P Ravikumar and Chief Minister’s Additional Chief Secretary M Lakshminarayana and other senior officials attended the meeting.

The Chief Minister said Rs 551.44 crore had been collected through stringent drives to check evasion of GST by delayed filing of returns and non-filing.

Officials have been asked to be vigilant, especially of those transporting goods through buses and from hotels, restaurants and other commercial establishments to check evasion of GST payments.

The Chief Minister indicated that the new forms of filing GST returns would be introduced from April 1, 2020 and made it clear that a campaign to popularize the new system of filing returns is being taken up.

Karnataka has emerged as the number one State in the entire country in e-way inspections, which is being effectively implemented by the Mobile Vigilance Squads.

Excise Department Complimented

The Chief Minister was very happy at the performance of the State excise department and said the department has already achieved a splendid revenue mobilization with a collection of Rs 16,187.95 crore till the end of December against the entire year’s target of Rs 20,950 crore, which was 77.23 % of the target.

The excise department's achievement was better than last year by Rs 1,165.33 crore and the growth in revenue mobilization of 7.76 %.

"It is commendable that the excise department has turned out an excellent performance even without increasing the prices of liquor, which is very commendable," he said.

Yediyurappa said as many as 39 services offered by the excise department have been brought under the purview of the Sakala programme, of which 25 services were available online.

The renewal of licences for retail vending of liquor and distilleries were being done online.

He said the excise department officials have been directed to take stringent action against sale of illicit liquor and other tax evasion.

The target for commercial taxes department has been fixed at Rs 76,046 crore, of which Rs 55,984 crore had been realized till the end of December. The performance of the commercial taxes department was 73.8 % of the target.

The transport department, however, has suffered a shortfall of Rs 460.20 crore with a revenue collection of Rs 4,864.80 crore, which was on account of the fall in the sale of vehicles.

The transport department has achieved Rs 6,601.96 crore tax realization against the target of Rs 7,100 crore.

The stamps and registration department has performed better with a revenue collection of Rs 8,297.65 crore till December against the target of Rs 11,838 crore for the full year. The performance was Rs 410.75 crore higher than last year.